Spring 2023

LATINX LITERARY MAGAZINE

spring ‘23

volume XIII • issue II

As we put together this magazine, themes of family, migration, and home arose. Shifts, changes, and newness seemed central to several pieces. We invite you to sit with the heaviness and beauty that comes with these themes within our community.

I write this letter in sadness and joy as a conclusion to my time with SOMOS Latinx Literary Magazine. Over the past several years I have had the privilege of serving as an editor and then co-editor in chief of the magazine. Holding our community’s art close to my heart has been a treasure and one that I hope to have shared with you over the past several editions of this magazine.

I encourage you all to consider the wonder of our art and stories that are conveyed throughout these pages. How do we honor our families and ancestors? How do our histories shape our communities? Whose voices are heard and whose must be amplified? These are questions I hope our magazine attempts to answer through our art.

This magazine and the space we have created would not be possible without the dedication, perspectives, and mindfulness of our amazing team. I thank our members, past and present, for welcoming me into this role and allowing me to share our art with you all. The home I have found in this magazine has come together because of each of you: artists, team, and community.

I hope this space continues to reflect the anger, frustration, sadness, love, joy, care, diversity, and hope of our community. And, as sad as I am to leave, I am confident that our future leaders and members will continue to foster the legacy of SOMOS. We are a team of Latinx students with the goal of amplifying Latinx art, but we are also a combination of voices, laughs, and smiles that will continue to share our community’s stories.

Un fuerte abrazo, Nikita

Content Warning

This magazine includes sensitive topics, such as generational trauma, racialized language, violence, migration, and diaspora. We ask that you navigate with this semester’s issue with care, sensitivity, and at the pace that feels most comfortable

The Great South American Adventure El

Ojos

La persona que no soy Un Besito Para Ti Adentro | Within

Si Dios lo manda

Deus Ex Machina

God Forbid, I am myself

Finding Refuge

Orgullo Mexicano

El Cornejo

Abuela’s Garden

Lo Perdido y Encontrado

Mateo Ríos

Mateo Ríos

Monik Rodríguez

Clarissa Guzmán

Argent Martínez

Mariela Flores

Mariela Flores

Mia Mira

Alexia Sanchez Contreras

Britney Garibay

Alex Celedon

Caín Yépez

Fior de la Cruz

Melany Veliz

Sebasstian Adriano

Shelly Nieto

Miriam Rice-Rodríguez

Fiona Killian

Jules Silva

Diego Silva

Astrid Larson

Jael Uribe

Alexa De La Fuente

Luca Suarez

Melanie Ortiz Alvarez de la Campa

Dominick Cocozza

Johanna Benitez

Mateo Ríos

Miriam Rice-Rodríguez

Britney Garibay

*cover and close-ups designed by Britney Garibay

**titles and team portraits designed by Miriam Rice-Rodríguez, Anila Lopez Marks, Luca Suarez, and Alvaro Uribe

8/16

I care so much to tell your story so well Very Very Well.

Perfectly Because you deserve it.

You deserve to be seen, Heard, Praised for all that you are. But, I keep failing I get wrapped up in a Tiny detail. Many tiny details.

In the way you say that word, How your eyes light up when you talk about this person, Or in that one time you.....

I fail to wrap it all up. In my head, On paper.

Maybe because I feel I have to fully know you Your past Present and Future. Know you before I string you together. Before I Add adjectives, Imagery, And write those people I have never met.

Know you before I put you on Display.

Or maybe, I am afraid to say I have finally known all of you To say I have written the full story of you

Because to me, you’ll Always

(Never stop) Living on and Transforming.

Boricua

Mateo Rios, MD-ScM ’26

Silk Screen on Stonehenge

Love is the root

Mateo Ríos, Brown MD-ScM ‘26 Silk Screen on Stonehenge paper

Clarissa Guzmán, RISD’ 26 charcoal on cardboard

Argent Martínez, Brown ‘25

Creation (acreation… )

My great-grandmother died the morning after celebrating my great-grandfather’s nose being handed to my mother.My mother likes to say my great-grandmother must’ve found other ways to me too.

La Concordia, Guerrero, Mexico, is a village with three hundred forty-six inhabitants centuries-old livelihoods lost to me.

I’d say nobody existed before my great-grandfather.

There’s a movie about a man visiting the mountains where mom recollects, he cuts where I subtract

lay in the dry peaks.

So when through New York; held days when my mom stared off at mountains living in my memories too.

In a small body of water. My head submerged, in a reservoir. Tears that wouldn’t join the water, held back. I call it static apnea. Discipline is the curl of words, flipping of pages, and La Paz del Señor. I never wrestled with the meaning of sitting in Church. I understood servility was dunking money into a woven basket. I knew following creases along the wall and glissading my index finger between mortar joints were my first encounters with meditation.

Where do bodies go. Mirrors, mattresses above our heads, windowsills, drains, gnats, white moths, the wind whispering a relevant message for you and only you. La oración es solo una forma de pedir bendiciones, pero creemos firmemente en Abuela, Abuelo, y más, Tia, y Tio, y los Perros, y el Pájaro. Están con Nosotros1. And we’re allowed to make demands on those who didn’t appreciate our love. We’re too allowed to weep and laugh at their mistakes, and whenever something suspicious happens in the house, like a radio turning on or something crashing in the upstairs attic, a place lacking in movement, or so we’d like to think. That’s when we know we are not alone. Tarot and crystals are minimal in communicating with the ancestors who have been propelling us across the border, into colleges, into the workforce, into this poem. They love to grab our shoulders and place visuals and sounds when and where we need them most. The back of our necks, to the front of us, to the ground below, to the sky above.

My mother has dreamt of the passing of relatives, and it’ll happen. Seen her grandmother’s messages from the other side. Talk about Manuel, her father, who did shit for her as a child, and did shit for her as an adult. I’m telling you. He’s out there. Even when your body isn’t here but there, even from the afterlife. Rectifying and turning the wheel on our destinies cause she asks him to.

1Prayer is just a way of asking for blessings, but we firmly believe in Abuela, Abuelo, y más, Tia, y Tio, and los Perros, y el Pájaro. They are with us.

Mariela Flores, Providence College ‘23

ONE “Maria”

You are so lazy. My name is one more syllable at the end a sound I know you know well---”uh” Use your tongue, don’t you dare cheat.

TWO

“Where are you really from?”

Where do you think?

I want you to say it loud, tell me who you think I am tell my why. Do not veil your ignorance with curiosity. You have not earned the right to innocence.

THREE

“We wanted to make sure the grammar was right”

Of my Spanish. A language you do not know. A language I know intimately. My Spanish loves me more than your English. What a thing you did colonizing a language that has already colonized thousands. You hold a boldness in your hands, it is heavy, and it bleeds--you are hungry for power. Stop touching what is not yours.

FOUR

“Why are you so loud?”

You hate that someone like me could take up space from someone like you. Do you hate it when my words touch you? All I have are words. I will use them, plunge them deep into your skin into the marrows of your bones until you hear me.

FIVE

“You people”

We are people. Yes, we are people. You wish we were nothing but dust and memories. Do we scare you? We people are going to “steal” your jobs.

We are going to earn everything you think you were born deserving. We take it back for ourselves, lather in the goodness of our time, you will get nothing.

Mariela Flores, Providence College ‘23

You ask and I serve. I take out the plate that is yours. I satiate you with carne, arroz, tortillas, frijoles–todo echo por mano. Por manos. Por ella.

I place it on the mantel. I take out your fork, your knife––whatever you may need. I ensure you are armored to be fed.

You ask and I pour. I take out your cup filling it con jugo de jamaica, careful not to spill and not to stain you red.

I do what I was born to do (For you). I pour, I pour.

You ask and I feed. I blow on the broth and cut the meat into tiny pieces so your tongue does not burn. I put the spoon in your mouth.

You chew, you swallow, you don’t thank.

Instead, you wait. For me, for my mamá, for my hermana, For my tia, for my prima, for my abuelita.

To fulfill their duty as Mujer en esta casa.

You ask. You ask. We answer.

no me quites mi luz

“This style of art takes on techniques used by Salvadoran artists to create post-war political cartoons following the civil war that began in 1979 and was meant to highlight the extent to which violence affected working class groups. This piece, specifically, is meant to demonstrate the power of governments in extinguishing lives to quell the truth as a means of preserving their self-proclaimed righteousness.”

Lo último que ella escuchó antes de partir fue el resonar de la campana del culto al que asiste su madre. A como ella me contó, aún en estos días, a pasos cortos que se alargan y con arrugas que se engarrotan al hueso, su madre atiende cada domingo sin falta. El chevy al que se subió era azul ferroso. La pintura se desvalagada a la caricia del viento como copos de nieve reclamados por el aire. Con un rugido agreste el chevy se detuvo y ella se bajó. Para cuando recordó, el coyote la tenía arriba de un flotador y atravesaban el río. El flotador se comenzó a desinflar y el pánico fue instantáneo, asfixiante. En la distancia distinguió oficiales de migración. Se sintió asustada. Creyó moriría ahogada, nunca aprendió a nadar. Creyó la migra la detendría, nunca fue una corredora veloz. Aun así, cruzó al otro lado. Era mediodía y su madre seguía en el culto “yo siempre pido por ti, mija.”

Love is all we got

Britney Garibay, RISD ‘25

Acrylic on board, hot glue, foam, and wire

SOMOS

[TITLE]

Sample Art Blurb [Title] [Name], Affiliation material(s)

Name, Affiliation (i.e Class, Year [‘2X])

Alex Celedon, Brown ’23

I assume trees are like hourglasses

Insert text here :)

Photos buried in shoeboxes

Worn out leather on car seats

Lost names engraved in golden necklaces

To the roots

Uneven

Comfortable in the dirt

The roots find themselves further in the earth

They journey down

The sand falls to the bottom of the hourglass.

You are asking the wrong question

It is the roots that cause earthquakes

Shift the earth as they grow

Intertwine with fault lines

Spread acrossw a tectonic plate

A fool tried to uproot them

Tectonic plates stricken

Fractured

Fault lines shift

They change the walls of my memory

Bring them down

Crumbled

Photos don’t exist of them and now I can’t recall what they look like

14 SOMOS

14 SOMOS

The Great South American Adventure Cain Yepez, Brown ’23 35 mm film, photography

Melany Veliz, Brown ‘25

Soy el agua que te corre por las venas y la arena entre tu cabello. Mi corriente es tu voz y mis crecidas tus lagrimas.

Yo soy el rio por donde pasan los viajeros que traen lena. Y donde habitan los espiritus perdidos del pasado.

Soy los tipujos frescos de la posa y las rocas lisas de la quebrada. Mis arboles son tus manos y los capulines que de ellos caen, tu comida

Yo soy el rio que jala las hojas desechadas a traves de sus aguas. Y mis vientos son los abrazos que tanto te consuelan.

Soy las burbujas de jabon que dejan las ninas cuando lavan sus ropas. Mi sangre es el fluido que llena los cantaros de las madres.

Yo soy la fuente de vida de cien aldeas. Yo soy la funete de vida de cien aldeas. Y sacio la sed de mil bocas.

Misterioso e impredecible, pero aqui estoy. Me mantengo entre violento y calmado, pero al menos se que soy: El Rio Sagrado que aun recuerdas hoy.

Cuando el agua del río se agota y las gotas regresan al mar, yo me siento a observar el vacío y el dolor lo comienzo a extrañar.

Yo prefiero sentir el rechazo, el flechazo certero y mortal, porque mientras me muero yo siento y agradezco que puedo llorar.

Dia en la Playa

Shelly Nieto, RISD Textiles ‘24 collage

My heart’s hopes lay fragile, like leaves alongside the sidewalk. Fragile like my body when I laid in your bed the last morning. The last morning that comes again and again. Relentless as winter winds. The morning when you make me coffee one last time. We sit in silence at the kitchen table, feeling the daylight pour in from the window. We take in one another like skin takes in sun, and I want you to mark my flesh with a ray of your warmth, so I might carry you with me like a freckle.

But then the car arrives, and the bags are stowed, along with the love that was so verdant. You kiss me, the last kiss, and it reminds me of autumn. Of children playing in leaves, and how we jumped into love trusting our fall would be cushioned. The last morning comes and goes, as everybody comes and goes—or so I’m told—and I am once again in my solitude. I walk these sidewalks alone, remembering the coffee, the sun, your kiss, and I collect my heart’s fragile hopes. I pile them high and jump, daring to dream a child’s dream. Daring to stay young at heart.

Fiona Killian, Brown ’24

The sunshine pokes through lace curtains as my face rests on silk sheets. But the delicate silk cannot compare to your touch, and these sheets feel cold without you. Outside, the leaves dance into the arms of the damp soil and their crackle mocks the static of the records that spun, upon that player. I remember our beloved melodies. I remember slow dancing. The cold hardwood floorboards firmly pressing against my bare feet, as I pressed you against my chest. I remember youI long for you. I live for you.

And I am jealous of every cup from which you drink, for their rims can still feel your lips. And I am jealous of your steering wheel, for your hands still gently hold it; guide it. But mostly I am jealous of your mirror, for it always sees the face I miss so dearly. But in my dreams you live onso I shall sleep in these sheets of silk, though they will never be enough.

Anochecer o atardecer, Ya no se que sea, Vivo muy anestesiado en esta hora sin nombre.

Tanta soledad me tiene delirante, Confundiendo amor por amabilidad.

Autoviolencias termodirigidas, Disipan mi ser, Pero no calman mi sed de lastimar(me)

A donde voy me hago rumbo Siendo un extrano en mi propia piel, Desollado, asolado, acicalado.

Soy cenizas de nebulosa para voces oxidadas, Me siento bien cuando me utilizan, Pero no cuando tomo conciencia de ello.

Sutilmente me voy A deschacerme en mis silencios. Me voy quedando sordo Mientras me lleva la verga.

Mas procesado que nada Mas fragmentado que nunca

Extrano las risas desfiguradas en melancolia cuando veo un reflejo que no querio reconocer.

Ahora solo me queda hacer parafernalias de mis tristezas, Deshilar mis paranoias salpicando sangre de mis venas, Para despertar de esta pesadilla llamada: La persona que no soy.

La esperanza es una ilusion por sonar despierto.

El amor es una infeccion de transmision sexual.

Nunca he sido primera opcion de nadie A veces tampoco seria ni mi ultima opcion

Un Besito Para Ti

Astrid Larson, University of San Francisco ‘26 Digital

Soy la semilla que crece hacia adentro. Ramifico en mí y soy mar de raíces profundas. Camino la ola que renace en tu orilla donde todos me llaman árbol, siendo roca. Donde todos me arrojan piezas que no son de mí. Viene el viento y me congela en tu sombra, viene la ira acariciando llanto pero no perece la risa que me ahoga, no muere el eco rampante que permuta en mi voz. A veces solo el dolor conoce mi verdadero nombre entonces, llega el abismo a comerse mi canto, regurgitando mis notas como si fueran yo. Pero yo, soy otra clase de lamento. Soy la semilla que se abre en otro sol.

Soy una semilla que crece hacia adentro. Soy mi propio árbol. Ese Norte irreconocible en las palabras, esa aguja partida en dos abrazos. Por eso, cuando me hundo vuelvo, por eso cuando vuelvo estoy en casa y en sus raíces, soy.

Soy una casa de paredes verdes. Soy mi propia luz, mi propio Dios.

—————-

I am the seed that grows within. I branch inside myself and I’m an ocean with deeper roots. I walk the wave born on your shore, where everyone mistakes me for a tree, but I’m a rock. Where everyone throws pieces at me that aren’t my own. The wind comes and freezes me to your shadow, anger comes, caressing my tears but the laughter that drowns me does not perish, the widespread echo sleeping in my voice dies not. Sometimes only pain knows my real name, then abysses come to swallow my song, vomiting notes as if they were mine. But I, I’m a different kind of lamentation. I’m the seed that opens in another sun.

I am a seed that grows within. I am my own tree. The unrecognizable North in my words, the needle broken in two hugs. That’s why, when I sink I come back. That’s why when I come back, I’m at home and in its roots, I find own my voice.

I am a big house with green walls. I am my own light, my own God.

Si Dios los manda

I will get through this flight and the next one and the next one on. Or so my buelita says I want to believe her

So I take her hand where calluses meet cuts

I squeeze tight before heading through the security point as she must have done in a different context and manner leaving cities and a country, reasons unknown

I don’t look back because I almost believed her the way a child believes everything will always be the same, their parents’ omniscience their taste buds, height favorite toys, but

Childhood is not always bliss

Some know too much too soon Maybe that’s why I can’t fully believe you, I was never a child

Si Dios lo manda

I can get through the pain. or so my buelita says I can cross towards the delicate glow of sunlight away from nights of shivering aches piercing my body where memory has pummeled and bruised baby skin Purples, blues and blushes of red if not for the painter. I can be steady. End to the tremble of my hands and voice always rushing to my next phase, my metamorphosis

Oh wouldn’t it be great to shed this old skin? These purples, blues, and blushes of red just a memory husk

My past no longer sticking to my body like taffy on teeth

Scraping out the gunk with the strength afforded to me by His manda

His manda, His manda, His manda

In trying to ease my pain

You distance yourself away from yours

I would never dare speak truth

To farce when it comes to you

But how much longer

Must we hide behind phrases?

Cold hand over blasphemous mouth

Muffling opposition

Can we live this way?

I don’t want to live this way

Si Dios lo manda

I can forgive. Or so my buelita says

She doesn’t look my way and I imagine grabbing her hand, seeping in her warmth

Bridging us through this old skin of ours

never letting go

Telling her we can feel unforgivable together

Oscillating in this uncertainty

Something we know can’t be fixed through words...

But I’m already on the flight. I whisper to myself, “Si Dios lo manda”

As I promise myself that

I’ll call when I land.

God forbid, I am myself

That ultimate sin of being loud In a state of silence and silenced

God forbid, I am ethnic In the stained, crooked conveyor belt Of the American Dream

God forbid, I am unique That dirty word heavy with the tears Of my overstimulated senses

God forbid, I am soulful

So full of ancient rhythms Played on long buried drums

God forbid, I am passionate With hands dancing by my chest But not locked in prayer

God forbid, I am kind

In a way that doesn’t require filling The diezmo after a hymnal

In God forbid, I turn out human in a world led by relics From a tarnished golden age

Finding Refuge

“This piece is inspired by the American Gilded Age and in locating my own Guatemalan-American Adoptee & Latinx heritage. The central figure is a traditional Guatemalan worry doll that I have held onto since my adoption in 2002. The figure searches for refuge while complicating the gilded interior with the addition of his own body and textiles (the rug) and by finding power in physically taking up space. My paintings discuss the similarities of displacement and emplacement, subverting mainstream sociopolitical ideas of home. I encourage viewers to explore their positionality concerning current and future surroundings; where environment meets body.”

Orgullo Mexicano

“This piece was created during my first year away from home as a dedication to my family who thanks to them I never forgot my Mexican heritage. I included pictures of the Chicano movement from the 70s, a personal letter from me to my parents, and a linoleum print of the moon I created for the piece based on the game “Loteria.”

& she said (words a falling blossom), pink and pure.

to nurture is burden / gift / blessing: your hands are like mine--tattered silk. but not unlike your (Father’s): calloused and aged.

if you wish to grow it (sweety), you can; however, creation is ephemeral, you understand?

In her delicate hands lies a seed--alone & grimacing. do you understand?

to live is to learn, so eager to bring life. Hands together--a prayer--you kneel into the sodden earth, that which bears (humanity’s) transgressions, but ask for one thing, pink and pure.

A relishing sprout cracks the seed, the nutrients & blessings it was given (taken) seeping drop by drop. until the well runs dry. prayer. Hands together. Eyes closed. Mouth pursed. You pray.

Crezca (grow). Please.

Abuela’s Garden

Miriam Rice-Rodríguez, Brown ‘23

Watercolor and micron pen on vellum and digital collage

“This greenhouse is a space I return to whenever I feel homesick— its heat and humidity remind me of the tropics and comfort me in the chill of New England winters. Many of its plants (the ones featured in the drawing) remind me of my abuelos’ garden in Panamá— aloe, plátanos, jengibre, orquídeas, papos y piña. Sometimes, sitting beneath the shade of a plátano, or stroking the petal of a papo, I feel that even though my family is far away, a fragment of them is physically with me. I like to think that maybe, at the same moment I am with these plants, mi abuelo está regando las matas y mi abuela está haciendo un té con jengibre, curcuma y raspadura, and in that moment, they don’t feel so far away.”

Lo Perdido y Encontrado

Britney Garibay, RISD ‘25

Colored pencils and soft pastels on toned paper

“This series focuses on Mexican ribbon braids and the weight and sacredness that hair holds emotionally and culturally. The placement of the braids in Mexican culture traditionally represents marital status. Both braids in the back represent looking for something, one in front represents the process, and both in front represent having found.

The introduction of green symbolizes independence, as it does on the Mexican flag. In this interpretation of hair and color, I show myself losing, searching, and finding new qualities of life; cutting my old hair to cut ties with my past self and everything I used to represent.”

Disclaimer

This publication is operated independently from Brown University. The statements, views, opinions, and information contained in the publication are personal to those of the authors and student group and do not necessarily reflect those of Brown University. The publication is not reviewed, approved, or endorsed by Brown University or its faculty or staff.

View the SOMOS Latinx Literary Magazine archive on Issuu.

InDesign type set by the SOMOS Team at Brown University

Titles - Avenir Heavy 14

Body Text - Avenir 12, leading 14.4

Visual Submission Descriptions - First line Avenir Heavy 9, second line Avenir Book Oblique 9, third line Avenir Book 9, leading 10.8

Visual Submission Captions - Avenir Light Oblique 9, leading 9

Written Submission Descriptions - Avenir Book and Book Oblique 10

Page Numbering - Avenir Book 10 April 2023.